


in which the universe is put together

by besidemethewholedamntime



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Canon-Compliant, Comfort, F/M, Family, Set during those four years in space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:27:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26864380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/besidemethewholedamntime/pseuds/besidemethewholedamntime
Summary: "They could carve out some time for themselves here where they don’t have to worry, don’t have to keep on working themselves to the edge for the chance that it might not even work. It wouldn’t be forever, but just long enough to have something that was theirs and could never be taken away."Fitzsimmons before, during, and after the results of the bloodwork.
Relationships: Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons
Comments: 22
Kudos: 77





	in which the universe is put together

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rainpaint](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainpaint/gifts).



> Hello! This is for Beth, who requested a kind of prequel to 'somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known' where Fitzsimmons find out the results of the bloodwork. Here it is! I know I always say I won't make them so long and I really didn't plan for this one to be this long but oh well, more to enjoy, right?
> 
> You don't have to have read the other one first, don't worry, but you can if you like!
> 
> Title from a quote from Carl Sagan. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy <3

It’s after the fifth time that Jemma stumbles whilst standing at the computer that Fitz decides he’s had enough.

“We’re running some medical tests,” he tells her, as he helps her to their bed. When she tries to protest he just gives her _that_ look and says, “It’s not up for a debate. If there’s something wrong then we need to know.”

“And how will knowing about it do any good?” She huffs, as he turns down the duvet and deposits her underneath. “There’s nothing we can do.”

“If it was the other way around then you’d be saying the same thing to me.” He bites his bottom lip. “We’ll just have to figure something out.”

They will have to, because they haven’t come so far and made it so close only to be separated once more. The universe can’t do this to them again, he won’t let it.

Jemma must see his face and she looks up at him from where she’s lain back against the pillow, irritation falling away. “I’m sure it’s nothing, Fitz. Probably just tiredness from working all of the time. You know how I can be.”

Her face is so pale she almost blends in with the pillowcase, and as he brings up the covers up to her chin, she shivers uncharacteristically into them. “I do know you,” he murmurs, more to himself than anyone else. “That’s what I’m worried about.”

-

Once Jemma’s asleep he finds himself aimlessly wandering the Zephyr, the only way that relieves the nervous energy. If he stops for a moment, if he sits down, then he starts to shake so much it’s all he can do not to cry, even though he doesn’t know what he’d be crying for.

For once, just once, he wants to stop. Stop all of it. He doesn’t want to try and figure things out that could have potentially earth-shattering consequences. He doesn’t want to build machines that could just take people further and permanently away from each other. He doesn’t even want to solve a crossword puzzle. He just wants one night where he can lie down with Jemma’s head on his chest and not have to worry about whether or not she’ll still be there when he wakes up.

What they’re doing is important, he doesn’t doubt it, and they’ll figure it out, they will. He’s just so tired. They’re both just so tired. Jemma’s been working herself overtime trying to figure everything out – the dark circles under her eyes are familiar from their Academy days when she would try and survive off three hours sleep in the days leading up to exams. It all feels a bit too much like it’s coming down to them killing themselves to save the world, and it's an unfair price he doesn’t think they should have to pay a second time.

-

“Where’s Enoch?”

“He’s getting the stuff for the blood-test.”

“Oh, well in that case I-”

“No, Jemma, I think he’s got it. We’ll both just wait here.”

Jemma swings her legs on the stool like a child. “We don’t have to use him to do it you know. He’s not our servant.”

“Well you can’t do it and I can’t do it so he’s all we got.”

“Ugh, I forgot how squeamish you can be.” She shakes her head. “It’s just a little blood, Fitz.”

He chooses not to remind her about the times he has assisted her with a needle, because then he’d have to explain that the reason he can’t take her blood himself is that his hand is shaking so much that he’s not sure he’d even be able to get the needle into her arm, never mind find her vein.

“I’m sure there’s nothing wrong,” she tries again. He can’t understand her reluctance to get tested, to rule out the possibility that there is something wrong. Jemma’s always been one to insist on evidence before making a conclusion, it’s what makes her such a brilliant scientist. It’s what brought them together. There might be nothing wrong, but nothing is exactly right either, and they don’t need a test to be able to tell them that.

He’s just about to open his mouth to ask if she’s become the squeamish one when Enoch appears from seemingly out of nowhere. Unwilling to get into an argument in front of their chronicom friend, he shuts his mouth and looks away as Enoch draws Jemma’s blood with relatively little fanfare. The whole thing takes less than two minutes, and once again Fitz can’t understand Jemma’s hesitation in getting it done at all.

“I will have this ready for you tomorrow,” Enoch tells them, holding the vial of blood in his hand.

“Tomorrow?” Fitz frowns. “Blood tests don’t take that long. Just don’t-”

“Tomorrow’s fine,” Jemma interrupts, not looking at him. “Thank you, Enoch.”

Enoch looks between them. “I would not worry about the results. Many of your symptoms can be easily explained by the change of living conditions and hours of work you are undertaking.”

Jemma shoots him an _I told you_ look but Fitz, for whatever reason, isn’t convinced. He knows how Jemma gets when she’s tired and overworked and this just isn’t it.

Enoch tilts his head, pausing as if considering something. “Of course, in my experience of observing humans, these symptoms have also been indicators of pregnancy.”

Fitz’s blood freezes and the air is suddenly forced from his lungs in a jagged exhale, but Enoch doesn’t appear to notice. “It would be highly unlikely, however,” is what he says, and then he leaves, as though he hasn’t just dropped a bombshell.

Jemma looks at Fitz and Fitz looks at Jemma and it’s one those instances where they both know they are thinking exactly the same thing. Since when has _highly unlikely_ meant anything other than _most definitely_ for them?

-

“You knew, didn’t you?”

His voice isn’t accusatory, not exactly. Just questioning. Ever since Enoch has delivered his parting statement, Fitz has felt the restlessness return tenfold and he can’t stop his pacing, this rushing of blood in his veins. It’s as though he has to do _something,_ he just doesn’t know what.

Jemma looks up from what she’s reading. “Fitz…” But the look on his face must tell her that he’s not going to be dissuaded and she sighs. “Not exactly.”

“Not exactly? What does that mean?”

“It means that the possibility crossed my mind for a very brief moment, but then I discounted it.” She sounds so calm, so rational, that it makes him feel out of place, as though he’s overreacting over something they don’t even know for sure yet.

“You could have said something,” he says, voice small. “Would have been nice to have a heads up.”

“Oh, Fitz, don’t do that.” She pushes back from the table, coming to stand in front of him. “It was a one-second thought, nothing more. Truthfully, I forgot about it until Enoch said what he did.”

He looks into her eyes, notices the dark circles beneath them and sees something that he hasn’t seen in a while. Everything quite suddenly falls into place. “You’re doing it again,” he says softly. “Burying your head in the sand, pretending that this isn’t happening.”

She stiffens slightly but doesn’t move away from him. “We don’t even know if something is happening yet.”

“But it could be. You heard what Enoch said.”

“Yes, and you also heard what he said about it being highly unlikely.”

“Don’t do that,” he warns quietly. “Don’t pretend we weren’t thinking the same thing in there.”

“Fitz…” She takes his hands in hers. They’re so cold, as they always are, as they have always been. _Cold hands, warm heart._ That’s what his mother used to say. Jemma’s are absolutely freezing. “There’s no point in scaring ourselves with what it could be, not at the moment.” She looks at him imploringly. “Whatever happens tomorrow then we will deal with it as we always do, but can we please just not worry about it tonight?”

She looks at him with wide eyes and he realises that maybe she just needs these last few hours of oblivion, of ignorance that cannot be brought back once they find out the results of the blood test. He looks into her eyes and realises that maybe it’s what he needs, too.

“Alright,” he says, even though it’s an effort to get past the lump in his throat. “We’ll deal with it tomorrow.”

-

He might have promised to deal with it tomorrow but that night, with Jemma’s head on his chest, he finds himself wide awake with the thought of it. _A baby._ The thought had never even crossed his mind, not for even a second as it had apparently with Jemma’s. He’d been worried it was some kind of vitamin or nutrient deficiency. The terrifying thought that it could be another alien virus had poked itself up from the recesses of his mind. A baby had never been something that he’d been worried about, because that would have been a new level of unbelievable and surely, _surely_ the cosmos wasn’t that cruel to them, right?

But then, if he takes everything else away and just thinks of them, just him and Jemma and their _baby,_ then he finds himself longing for something that doesn’t yet exist. More than anything he wants to settle down with Jemma, properly settle down with her. No more missions, no more end of the world looming around every corner. He wants a house with her, a home with her, a _family_ with her. This might not be how he wanted it but if the universe has given it to them then he’s prepared to take it, hold on tight, and never let it go.

Right now they’re working themselves to the bone to try and rush back to the temple, but what if they didn’t have to? It’s a time machine after all. It doesn’t matter when they complete it, only that they _do._ They could take some time…

As soon as he thinks it he recoils from the thought on instinct, but then, once his heart calms down, he cautiously probes the idea. What would be so wrong with it? They’ve given so much to SHIELD over the years, but this they could keep. They could carve out some time for themselves here where they don’t have to worry, don’t have to keep on working themselves to the edge for the chance that it might not even work. It wouldn’t be forever, but just long enough to have s _omething_ that was theirs and could never be taken away.

What at first seemed too terrible now feels like an attractive option, something he wants, perhaps has always wanted without ever knowing it. It feels like more than what he wants, however. It feels like what they deserve.

-

“Is this about the bloodwork?” She asks later, and he can tell just how much she doesn’t want to say it, doesn’t want to acknowledge what now seems more and more likely as the hours go by. Tomorrow has come, though. There’s no hiding from it anymore.

He tells her it’s not, and he tells her it is. He tells her it’s because they deserve it. She rests her head on his shoulder and he slings his arm around her neck and he wishes, for a moment, they could stay like this forever.

-

“Did you mean it?”

He’s sitting playing with some bits of wire, twirling them over and over again in his fingers. The clock on the wall that tells them time as it would be on Earth shows it’s almost near the end of the day and still Enoch has brought them no news. Jemma could go look at the results herself if she so chose, but he knows that she won’t.

Without looking up at her, he says, “Yeah.”

He hears her sigh. “Fitz…” And it’s a Fitz that means he won’t like what she has to say.

“Look, Jemma, it’s fine.” He keeps on spinning the wires, glad to be in control of at least something. “You don’t have to say it.”

“I do.” And something in her voice has him looking up to where she stands in the doorway. He says nothing, just watches as she looks left and right, swallows, and says, “I don’t know how we could do it.”

“We could. Not saying it wouldn’t be hard but if we’re going to ha-”

“Fitz.”

He swallows what he was going to say, which is just as well because he doesn’t think he could get the words out anyway. “If we’re going to do this then I think we deserve some time to do it properly. Don’t you?”

“It’s not that.” She shakes her head, pushing herself off the wall. “It’s the practicalities of it. I mean think about what it would be like, what it would really be like. Not the dream we have in our heads. We’d pop back after having what, months – years? – away? How would we be able to explain that?”

He drops the pieces of wire, more energised now. Ready to fight for what he wants. “The same way we always do – we don’t. If it took us years to build the thing it wouldn’t matter, why does choosing it make much of a difference?”

There are tears glistening in Jemma’s eyes. “Because we’d be choosing ourselves over them.”

He nods. “Yeah. We would.”

“It’s just…” Her bottom lip trembles. “Isn’t that selfish?”

“Yes!” His voice unexpectedly jumps and immediately he clambers back down. “It is. That’s the whole point. We get to do something for ourselves, choose something for ourselves for once instead of risking our lives all the time.”

“Fitz,” she breathes, “they’re our _family._ ”

“No, Jemma,” he tells her. “They’re not. Or they’re not the way you and I are to each other.” A slight pause. “The way you and I are about to be to each other.”

It feels cruel, the words leave a bitter taste in his mouth, but he says it anyway. It is only the truth. If they’re about to be parents then that comes above everything else.

“Look, if you are…” he doesn’t say it, “then that’s all that matters. It feels like we’ve been given a chance, and if we throw it away then I don’t know if we’ll ever get that again.”

Jemma still looks unsure. “What would they say? We’ve just gone off and enjoyed our lives and left them to it?”

“But we wouldn’t have,” he says insistently. “It’ll be moments for them, an instant. They won’t have lost anything. But we’ll have had something together, something that nobody can take away from us no matter what happens next.”

“And then what? We go back to SHIELD? Like none of it has ever happened?”

There’s a dream in his head that he’s had for a while, but that he’s been too afraid to voice out loud for fear the universe will decide to take it away from him.

“I don’t know,” he says carefully. “We could decide that later.”

They watch each other for a moment, all sorts of unspoken things between them. It’s not an argument, it’s not even a disagreement. It’s a fear of the unknown, for when they find out what they both ultimately know is true, they can never go back.

“We don’t even know if it’s-”

“Jemma…”

She goes to say something else but then she stumbles again, one hand going out to the doorway, the other going to her head.

“Here,” he says, up in an instant. “Come on, come and sit down.”

He helps her to the chair he’s just vacated, crouching down in front of her. He puts a gentle hand on her knee and waits as she takes a few deep breaths.

“You alright?” He asks.

“Yes,” she exhales. “I think so. Just got a bit dizzy standing up for so long.”

Tapping gently on her knee, he says quietly, “If this is what’s happening already then what do you think it would be like a couple months down the line?”

“I could do it,” she says, but she doesn’t sound sure.

“Maybe, but you shouldn’t have to. Not when it wouldn’t make a difference anyway.”

He feels a cool hand press itself to the side of his face and the tightness he has felt all day all over is gone in an instant.

Jemma sighs, a complete unwinding. “I just want to do the right thing, Fitz. That’s all.”

He thinks that after all they’ve seen and done, right and wrong are subjective. There are just things, and they are never easy.

Except perhaps loving her. It’s been messy, heartbreaking and devastating, and yet also the easiest thing of all.

But he sighs with her, giving her a small, exhausted smile. “I know,” he tells her, thinking again how much she loves her, how he couldn’t live without her. “So do I.”

-

Enoch finds them here almost an hour later, sitting drinking tea and trying not to think about it too much.

“Oh good,” he says to both of them from the doorway. “I have found you.”

“Here we are,” Fitz says. Underneath the table, Jemma reaches for his hand and holds on tight.

“Do you have the results for us?” There is a false brightness in her voice, and he knows she’s going to cling onto it until the very end.

“Yes. I do.” He has a piece of paper in his hand that he briefly looks down at before looking back up. “It appears that you are indeed pregnant. I did say it was highly unlikely, however highly unlikely does not mean impossible and…”

Fitz doesn’t hear what he says after that. Jemma’s hand has turned white where it grips his own and when she turns to him, teary-eyed, her face is the same.

“Oh, Fitz,” she breathes and in a second he’s up and she’s burying her face into his jumper, her next words almost muffled. “What are we going to do?”

“It’ll be okay,” he soothes as he rubs her back and lets her cry into him. He’s half torn between joy and fear. _A baby._ “Shh, it’ll be okay. It’ll all be okay. We’ll figure it out. I promise.”

-

They lie face-to-face that night, the dark like a safety net around them to catch whatever comes out. The blankets are up to their chins and, though he knows being on the Zephyr is being in a world of their own, this feels a world within it that really is just for the two of them.

Though not just two now, he must remember that. From now on it’s always three.

The steps they’ve taken to get here have all been undertaken in a blur. Somehow, they’ve managed to get themselves from the table into pyjamas, brush their teeth, into bed and underneath the blankets, but he couldn’t say how. He couldn’t even say how long they’ve been touching foreheads like this together, both of them too afraid to speak into the silence and make it real.

It’s a haze of fear and elation, a desire to have a family and a hesitation to have it like this. It isn’t what they had planned, but it’s what they’ve been given and now it’s a matter of figuring out how to make it right.

“Alright,” she says first, her voice not quite a whisper. “Let’s take some time.”

It’s completely dark and yet Jemma’s eyes sparkle as brilliantly as they always do. There was a point in his life where he lived without knowing them, but he can’t remember it.

“Are you sure? I know earlier-”

“That was before,” she interrupts. “It’s all different now. It’s real.”

“Yeah,” he says in an exhale, the enormity of it settling in bit by bit. He’s going to be a _father._ There will be time for doubts and anxieties later, he knows this, but for now there’s just a quiet joy, a small flame in his heart that he wants to cup his hands around and protect. “It’s all different now.”

“Exactly. I want to give our baby a proper childhood, something that they’ll always have.” She smiles a small smile. “And you and Enoch are right – it doesn’t matter when we do it, I suppose.”

“It wouldn’t be forever,” he says. “We’re close.”

“I know, but long enough. Long enough for them to remember us. I don’t want to be someone they only know from photos or stories, Fitz.” She inhales shakily. “I don’t want to be a ghost.”

“Hey,” he tells her softly, rubbing her arm. “We won’t be ghosts, alright? We’ll stay here as long as you want. Just the three of us and Enoch having the time of our lives.”

She laughs, and though it’s wet he can tell it’s genuine. “Ah, Enoch. He’s so excited. It’s adorable.”

Fitz thinks of Enoch and how happy he’s been since imparting the knowledge. He isn’t sure exactly how much experience with children their chronicom has had but it seems to far exceed their own. Although judging from some of the items he was mentioning he would pick up on his next supply run, Fitz isn’t entirely sure how recent the experience has been.

“Adorable,” Fitz snorts. “That’s one word for it.”

Jemma gives him that look that means she’d be fed up of him if she didn’t love him so much. Then she shakes her head. “I wouldn’t like to be here for too long. I don’t want our baby to miss out on things.” She grips his arm tightly all of a sudden, eyes wide. “Oh, Fitz, what about our parents? What will we tell them?”

“Nothing,” he says, narrowing his eyes, feeling like he’s repeating himself. “Just like we always do.”

Jemma snorts. “Yeah, right. Like that one’s going to fly with your mum.”

He has to admit she has a point. His mum has never been one to let things go easily. If he turns up with a child in tow after not speaking to her all of these years then there will definitely be something said, probably rather loudly.

“Okay,” he draws out the word. “Fair point. We’d figure it out, though. We’d have a baby with us – they couldn’t stay mad at us for too long.”

Jemma looks at him, teary-eyed. “Fitz,” she says, almost breathlessly, “we’d have a _baby_.”

“Yeah.” He can’t help the smile that comes to his face. “We would.”

She chuckles. “I can’t believe it. We’re going to be parents.”

Neither can he. “We’re growing up.”

“That we are.” She grins at him. “Who would have thought it?”

“Not us, that’s for sure.”

“Do you think we’ll be any good at it? Being parents?”

Jemma’s hopeful voice, her bright eyes, are all reminders of the days when they were at the Academy and then Sci-ops, maybe even those early days on the Bus, also. Reminders of a time when the unknown was exciting, and that there was always something new to be learned and appreciated. Reminders of a time when nothing bad had happened to them yet, and it felt as though nothing ever would. They had felt invincible in a way, the two of them standing on the edge of discovery like that, the whole universe there for the taking.

He kisses her on the forehead, because he wants to, because he can. “I think,” he murmurs, surprised to find it true, “that as long as we’re doing it together, then we’ll be alright.”

She hums, nestling down so her head fits just underneath his. “We _are_ quite good together, aren’t we?”

“Unstoppable,” he assures her.

“Yes,” she says, and he can feel her smile against his skin. “Unstoppable.”

They’ve been through so much together and still they have ended up here, in each other’s arms, about to embark on an adventure of the like neither of them has before. It might not have been what they had planned, what they wanted, but it somehow feels like the way it’s supposed to be. Their something magnificent out in space. The cosmos has been undeniably cruel to them in the past, and yet Fitz can’t help but feel that this time it has gotten something exactly right.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading - I hope you enjoyed it! Please feel free to leave kudos/comments. Please feel free not to. Either way, I hope you have a lovely day and are managing to stay safe and well during these times <3


End file.
